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...a blog by Richard Flowers

Monday, February 19, 2007

Day 2239: Happy Chinese New Year of the Pig

Saturday:

Both of my Daddies are Pigs.

I am not being rude; I am reading this Chinese Horoscope Calendar and it says here that the Year of the Pig was from the 27th of January 1971 to the 14th of February 1972 and that include BOTH of their birthdays.

Mind you it also says that I am a RABBIT.

That is STUPID – I am an ELEPHANT! Where is the Year of the Elephant, then?

Never mind all that: we have been celebrating by listening to Year of the Pig, a Doctor Who adventure from the Big Fish people! (Not to be confused with the Year of the Cat by Mr Mad Larry!)

It was really jolly good! It only has a small cast, but they are all very special stars, including Mr Colin as Dr Who and Ms Nicola as Peri along with Ms Maureen O'Brian who travelled with Mr Billy when HE was Dr Who; Mr Michael Keating who was Vila in Blake's Seven; Ms Adjoa Andoh who used to be a nurse in Casualty and was also a nurse – and a cat and a nun – on New Earth in Doctor Who; and Mr Paul Brooke who has been in almost everything but you probably remember him as the RANCOR KEEPER in the Return of the Jedi.

One or more of these people turned out to be pigs too!

Although the cast is small, the script is very, very good, and very funny and clever and SURPRISING too. Especially when the COWS land on the BEACH. It uses lots of clever playing with words to tell a story that is lots and lots of fun. And also rather SURREAL!

It has two episodes, like in Mr Colin's first proper season but they are REALLY GINORMOUS – one whole CD each! But do not worry! They trip along at such a merry GAVOTTE that you hardly notice all the time passing.

Plus it is good to hear Ms Peri and Dr Who having a GOOD TIME together. Even if it involves picking a fight with Marcel Proust, receiving an unwanted stuffed monkey or getting sauna'd to death (nearly). This is more like the NICE relationship that they have by the time Dr Who gets put on Trial. If you add this to which theme tune they use [R: it's the Dominic Glynn, season 23 remix] then I think you should IGNORE what the sleeve says about it being set "after Timelash" and replace with the words "before The Trial of a Time Lord"!

Those Big Fish people are having rather a good run at the moment, what with the exciting conclusion to their series of adventures for Mr Paul (more on THAT story tomorrow); several good new adventures in their regular line (we have only recently got round to enjoying "Memory Lane" and "No Man's Land"); and a new idea called "The Companion Chronicles" that enables them to do some new stories for the first four Dr Whos, and to work with several former friends of the Doctor. Ms Maureen was back for the first of those too: "Frostfire" by writing GENIUS Mr Mark Platt and THAT was jolly good too! It was a Victorian Ghost story and legend of old Araby and Doctor Who story all rolled into one, and jolly nicely read and performed too. I hope that the rest are as good: we are really looking forward to them now!

And apparently Big Fish SUPREMO Mr Jason has said that there will be another series soon. Hooray!

We were QUITE WORRIED when the wonderful Mr Gary T Russell – super-producer for Big Fish and also JAMES BOND STAR! – ran away to find his fortune making TELEVISION in CARDIFF. But it turns out that – as so often in Doctor Who – a change is as good as a rest, and the audio adventures seem revitalised with a different set of new ideas.

The Year of the Pig is supposed to be very AUSPICIOUS! I hope that it is going to be good for the Big Fish people – and I hope that it will be good for YOU TOO!